Talk:Motive power

Loving this article

lovin this article anon.

Me too, This explains why locomotives are described as motive power. I wonder if we could relate that some how on this page with a link to Locomotive {steam) and how thermodynamic motive power replaced steam technology with electro motive and diesel motive. I am adding Category:Trains to this article for this purpose. Greetings, Paptilian (talk) 00:01, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

@Paptilian: Steam locomotives use thermodynamics as well. You should not add material to pages from your own original research, but instead work from information found in reliable sources. The Mirror Cracked (talk) 00:40, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

I added three forms of motive power to the locomotives and referenced them here. Any original research has only been to link the articles, I've not added any material from other sources. Thanks for responding. Paptilian (talk) 00:57, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

You added links to Thermodynamics, Electromotive force and Electro-diesel locomotive to the article Rail transport, but doing that is original research. Please go and read about what original research is, as you have it exactly backwards. Original research is when you make up facts and add them to an article. You should not do that. Instead, you should find a reliable source that describes rail transport, and use that source to decide what information to add. You then cite that source so other readers can verify the information. Your addition was not only original research, but it was also incorrect. Your statement "Electromotive force explains motive power for electric locomotives." is incorrect. I removed your original research from the Rail transport article. The Mirror Cracked (talk) 02:47, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the tutorial, This stuff helps me learn.Paptilian (talk) 20:27, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

What's up with this template?

The entirety of this article is source and the template should go away. Paptilian (talk) 00:05, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

You perhaps don't understand what a source is, on Wikipedia. WP:V is a good place to start, followed by WP:RS. This article has no sources at all and the template pointing that out is highly appropriate. The Mirror Cracked (talk) 00:40, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Undiscussed conversion to a dab

This should have been discussed first. Particularly as a side-effect of that is that all the inbound links are now being stripped away by the DAB process. @Onel5969: Andy Dingley (talk) 12:09, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

• revert A poor article on a good topic was no reason to convert it. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:07, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
• keep as dab. Article unsourced for well over 10 years, full of original research. Might this be discussed on the Power (physics) page, yes, if sourced properly. In fact it makes more sense to be included there with all the different types of power already in that article. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 13:20, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

I see the main problem here as railways. "Motive power" has a widespread use there as the machinery providing power, rather than the physical concept. It's also by far the most widely used location for this precise term (physicists just don't use it - I don't know if Victorians did). Andy Dingley (talk) 13:52, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

• revert Article should be improved with sources. This is an example of incorrect fallout of this change. The term in rail usage means the "locomotive" as stated in the present dab. So the link for "motive power" in a rail article should go to the old article which mentions locomotives, or directly to locomotive, but not to an article on physics. MB 14:49, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

You're right, Andy Dingley and MB, I misread those articles when I was doing the dab fixes this morning. But neither of those fixes would be correct if this was simply reverted. The prior article had nothing to do with the concept of "locomotive". That was on the Motive power (disambiguation), which I didn't know existed until I had finished the dabs. The dab should remain, and I'll go correct those I got wrong this morning. But by far the most corrections were to the combination [[motive power|motive]] [[power (physics)|power]], in which clearly the correct use should be either motive [[power (physics)|power]] or [[power (physics)|motive power]], and what can be salvaged of the original article incorporated into the power (physics) article, with sources. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 16:09, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

• Comment feel free to revert, WP:BRD and all that. Given this talk page had no discussions over 11 years before this month, I wasn't confident that starting a discussion would have traction, so I decided to be bold. As User:onel5969 points out, linking to the old version of this article wasn't actually useful and 10 years seems like enough time for someone to improve the article. If there's enthusiasm for revert-and-improve now, I'm delighted. The Mirror Cracked (talk) 21:33, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
• Keep as DAB. A very vague term, with no precise meaning in either physics or engineering. The article before conversion to a DAB was essentially a WP:DICDEF with added WP:OR. The equation of 'motive power' with either work (physics) or power (physics), two distinct concepts, was particularly horrible. As readers may come across the expression, particularly in older literature, better to give them a DAB with thumbnail descriptions pointing to the various possible meanings. Narky Blert (talk) 22:12, 17 November 2019 (UTC)